Are You Playing Offence or Defence?

Whatever you’re doing in life at any particular time, you’re either playing offence or defence. I remember hearing Gary Vaynerchuck use this sporting analogy when advising how to hire great people. Being a sports fan myself, this concept resonated with me—but you don’t necessarily need to be interested in sports to “get it”.

In this post you’ll learn advantages and disadvantages of each method. But before we determine which side of the field you’re playing on, it helps to get some clarity on what offence and defence means.

In the context of sports, offence is:

The means or tactics used in attempting to score.

The team in possession of the ball or puck, or those players whose primary duty is to attempt to score.

Scoring ability or potential.

And defence is:

The means or tactics used in trying to stop the opposition from scoring.

The team or those players on the team attempting to stop the opposition from scoring.

Defending ability or potential.

If you’re playing offence, you’re proactively looking to score. Conversely, if you’re playing defence, you’re reactively trying to stop the opposition from scoring.

The keywords in this analogy are proactive and reactive. Being offensively minded means that you’re proactively looking for opportunities. Being defensively minded means that you’re reactively responding to threats.

So let’s bring this back to everyday living. Below I’ve created a table with some examples of what offence and defence look like on a day-to-day basis:

Example 2 – Working with managers

Offence – Proactively reaching out to your manager with a proposed plan about how things could be improved

Example 3 – Cleaning your house

Defence – Tidying your home when it gets messy

Offence – Blocking out chunks of time to aggressively eliminate things that you don’t need

Example 4 – Finding a job

Defence – Waiting to apply for jobs that get posted on careers websites

Offence – Reaching out to prospective employers directly regardless of whether they have a job opening or not

Example 5 – Research paper

Defence – Start your paper two days before the deadline

Offence – Prepare your outline in advance, get feedback from teacher early and look to go deep on your topic

Is it better to play offense or defence?

When looking at the examples, it’s clear that everyone must play defence for any chance to win.

We all need to respond to emails, execute requests from management and tidy our houses. Much like how a boxer must protect his face before he can get a chance to land a punch. Sometimes you might need a whole week setting up your defence. Maybe a year. But if all we do is play defence, we’ll always miss out on the opportunity to score.

Being offensively minded on the other hand means doing things that move the needle forward in your life. You’re essentially grabbing life with your own hands and making things happen as opposed to waiting for things to happen to you.

In this mode, you take the initiative to make things happen. At the same time, to much offence without any defence will mean that you’ll be extremely vulnerable and you’ll end up letting the everyday tasks and deadlines mount up to the point where it blows up in your face.

It’s important to recognise that both modes have their place and like any good athlete, you need to determine when it’s best to go on the offensive and when it’s more appropriate to hang back and protect your goal.

I know for me, I get caught up trying to play too much offence and subsequently burn out and let my defensive tasks mount. If I had a preference though, I’d always look to score 😉

What about you? Are you typically offensive minded or defensive minded?